JasonParis
Moderator
I'll start with this from Spacing/Eye's Dale Duncan...
Five for '07
By Dale Duncan
The top provincial-election issues that Torontonians need to know
1. SHOW US THE MONEY
The mother of all issues, as most readers well know, is sustainable funding for Toronto. City council faces a projected shortfall of $575 million for next year's budget, a looming figure that neither service cuts nor new taxes can cover. After years of dipping into reserve funds -- an option that is no longer viable given that we have less than $24 million in reserve funds left -- it's time that the financial burden that the province hoisted onto us in the late 1990s (when the Harris Tories forced Ontario municipalities to pay for social services such as welfare and drug programs) be lifted.
Ontario is the only province in Canada that requires its cities to fund social services, and provincially mandated programs (as they're called) account for 32 per cent of Toronto's budget. Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty agreed to conduct a report in co-operation with municipalities on the roles that cities play in funding the provincial social services, but that report isn't scheduled for completion until next year. Waiting until then to start uploading would likely mean Toronto will have to suffer even more service cuts; investing in the future of our city would not be an option as we struggle to stay afloat. "This has to be an election issue," said budget chief Shelly Carroll back in May. "This has to be fixed and not just for Toronto."
2. GOING GREEN
The No. 1 topic on environmentalists' lips isn't nuclear power or the unknown toxins spewing into our air. According to Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), the most pressing green issue for Toronto during this provincial election is money (sound familiar?). Without fair funding from Queen's Park, city hall will have a hard time reaching its goals on climate change and smog reduction. "We've reached a pretty huge crisis point and all of us are having nightmares," Miller says. Toronto's climate-change, clean-air and sustainable-energy action plan -- whose targets include reducing 6 per cent of greenhouse gases and 20 per cent of locally produced smog causing pollutants by 2012 -- is estimated to cost $84 million to fulfill. Planned cuts to city services, made in the wake of council's vote to defer implementing new taxes, are already threatening our ability to make Toronto cleaner and greener. Doubling the tree canopy, for example, will be difficult when tree maintenance and new plantings are scaled back.
But other decisions made at Queen's Park can affect Toronto's air, water and land as well. "I don't think that the Ontario government has responded to the depth of environmental concern that Ontarians have expressed," says one of city council's greenest politicians, Gord Perks. He cites the province's energy plan as an example, calling it "one of the worst in the world," lacking in its commitment to meeting our energy needs through conservation, renewable resources (such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power) and co-Â*generation (turning wasted energy from industrial and commercial sites into usable power).
According to WWF Canada and the Pembina Institute, Ontario could cut greenhouse gases and reduce its dependence on coal sooner than expected by opting for such greener energy solutions, which would also make meeting Toronto's greenhouse gas reduction goals that much easier. Plans to increase our reliance on nuclear energy, however, have some people, including Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, worried about the effect it might have on our drinking water, especially if the Pickering power plant were to be expanded.
Knowing where candidates stand on the Greenbelt -- the 1.8 billion hectares of land that the province has protected from future development -- is also important. The environmentally sensitive land not only acts as the city's lungs, but is also our main source of locally grown food and home to the watersheds that ensure our drinking water supply. It may be protected, but that hasn't stopped some developers from fighting to build there. The Greater Golden Horseshoe, where the Greenbelt resides, is the fastest growing urban area in Canada and the third fastest in North America.
Toronto's trash-reduction goals would be a lot easier to meet with help from the province as well. With a new garbage-collection program that will see Torontonians pay according to the size of the garbage bin they take to the curb, the pressure is on residents to reduce, reuse and recycle to help the city meet its goal to divert 70 per cent of waste generated by households and small businesses. Only the province has the power to regulate those who produce the packaging we end up having to throw out in the first place. They also play a big role in how we dispose of our waste, as evidenced the government's recent decision to fast-track incineration pilot projects in Ontario.
3. A BETTER WAY
When TTC chair Adam Giambrone announced Transit City -- a 120 km streetcar network that would crisscross the city -- the big question was: how are we going to pay for it? Priced at $6.1 billion, the new LRT lines won't be possible without funding from both the province and the federal government. To everyone's surprise, in June, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty announced that Queen's Park would fund two thirds of the network as part of its MoveOntario 2020 plan, which contains other goodies, such as an extension of the Yonge Street subway to Highway 7 and expanding capacity on all GO lines. The election, however, means that whether or not the cash actually comes through may be up in the air.
The financial pressures that Toronto's transit system faces are well-known by those who use the system -- while downtowners complain of overcrowded streetcars that inch along at a snail's pace, inner suburbanites deal with infrequent service that's spread thin among the sprawling subdivisions and clusters of towers. Despite the TTC's less-than-ideal service, however, ridership is growing, which means costs are rising. Before the TTC was asked to consider cutbacks in the wake of Toronto's recently declared financial crisis, the goal was to find $640,000 to boost services to meet an unexpected growth in ridership, which is projected to reach 462 million in 2007.
Once upon a time (before 1997, to be exact), the provincial government paid for 50 per cent of the TTC's operating costs not covered by fares. With climate change, smog and road congestion, continuing to get people out of their cars and onto public transit is increasingly important, but the province will have to give us more help. "The fact is, in order for us to get back to a sustainable level, we have to get back to the 50-50 split in cost between the province and the city," says Giambrone. "That's really where we have to be."
4. EDUCATION
While investing in programs and opportunities for low-income youth remains a priority for Torontonians, the financial pressures that Toronto's schools face are eerily similar to those that plague our municipal government. With no choice but to balance their budgets each year, boards across the province have been forced to raid their reserves -- in total, 26 boards used more than $100,000 each from their reserve funds to balance their budgets for the 2007-08 year. This year, the Toronto District School Board alone has an estimated budget shortfall of around $25 million.
The city's growing population and diverse communities mean that Toronto schools face different pressures than elsewhere in the province. "People should ask candidates if they believe urban schools and non-urban schools have different needs and, if so, what their party is going to do about it," says Annie Kidder of People for Education. "
One issue that affects Greater Toronto Area (GTA) schools is English as a Second Language (ESL) training. While 90 per cent of schools in the GTA report having ESL students, only 54 per cent of those schools actually have ESL teachers to support them, and there's nothing in place to ensure that the funds allocated for ESL students actually get to ESL students. Severe shortfalls in other areas, such as building maintenance costs, have forced some schools to use cash set aside for ESL training to fix leaky roofs. Without adequate funds from the province, they've had little choice.
5. THE OMB
Of the top five provincial election issues affecting Toronto, abolishing the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) -- the much-hated, provincially appointed body that has the power to overturn planning decisions supported by both city council and neighbourhood residents -- will be the easiest for candidates to ignore. The effect it has on Toronto's ability to determine what our city will look like in the future, however, is significant. Developers, for example, know that if city council doesn't approve their projects -- be they high-rise condos, big-box stores or townhomes on land zoned for employment -- they can appeal to the OMB and get their high-priced lawyers to defend them at hearings. The city and neighbourhood associations, meanwhile, don't have nearly as much money to throw around.
Overall, the OMB helps make it more difficult for Toronto's understaffed planning department to engage in real, proactive planning (i.e., knowing what kind of development is best suited for a neighbourhood before development applications roll in). And, no matter how much Torontonians question the OMB's authority, the province, it seems, doesn't want to listen.
A recent surprise ruling by the Divisional Court regarding the OMB's decision on developments in the West Queen West neighbourhood, however, provided proof that the board doesn't always play by the rules. "The board's reasons are devoid of any discussion of the Planning Act, Provincial Policy Statements and the city's Official Plan as they apply to these lands," the ruling stated. "The board provides no rationale or analysis to support its conclusion that the projects were in the public interest."
A coalition of neighbourhood groups called People Planning Toronto (PPT) would like to see the OMB's planning authority over the City of Toronto abolished. Though other provinces have appeal systems, none have an appeal board with the same sweeping powers as the OMB. PPT's desire to scrap the provincially appointed board, which was created in 1897, is shared by many members of council. "[The OMB] is a Frankenstein monster that's out of control," Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said during February's council meeting. "It must be eliminated."
Check out EYE WEEKLY's 2007 provincial election mini-site for more coverage, including the riding-by-riding lowdown here.
Five for '07
By Dale Duncan
The top provincial-election issues that Torontonians need to know
1. SHOW US THE MONEY
The mother of all issues, as most readers well know, is sustainable funding for Toronto. City council faces a projected shortfall of $575 million for next year's budget, a looming figure that neither service cuts nor new taxes can cover. After years of dipping into reserve funds -- an option that is no longer viable given that we have less than $24 million in reserve funds left -- it's time that the financial burden that the province hoisted onto us in the late 1990s (when the Harris Tories forced Ontario municipalities to pay for social services such as welfare and drug programs) be lifted.
Ontario is the only province in Canada that requires its cities to fund social services, and provincially mandated programs (as they're called) account for 32 per cent of Toronto's budget. Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty agreed to conduct a report in co-operation with municipalities on the roles that cities play in funding the provincial social services, but that report isn't scheduled for completion until next year. Waiting until then to start uploading would likely mean Toronto will have to suffer even more service cuts; investing in the future of our city would not be an option as we struggle to stay afloat. "This has to be an election issue," said budget chief Shelly Carroll back in May. "This has to be fixed and not just for Toronto."
2. GOING GREEN
The No. 1 topic on environmentalists' lips isn't nuclear power or the unknown toxins spewing into our air. According to Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), the most pressing green issue for Toronto during this provincial election is money (sound familiar?). Without fair funding from Queen's Park, city hall will have a hard time reaching its goals on climate change and smog reduction. "We've reached a pretty huge crisis point and all of us are having nightmares," Miller says. Toronto's climate-change, clean-air and sustainable-energy action plan -- whose targets include reducing 6 per cent of greenhouse gases and 20 per cent of locally produced smog causing pollutants by 2012 -- is estimated to cost $84 million to fulfill. Planned cuts to city services, made in the wake of council's vote to defer implementing new taxes, are already threatening our ability to make Toronto cleaner and greener. Doubling the tree canopy, for example, will be difficult when tree maintenance and new plantings are scaled back.
But other decisions made at Queen's Park can affect Toronto's air, water and land as well. "I don't think that the Ontario government has responded to the depth of environmental concern that Ontarians have expressed," says one of city council's greenest politicians, Gord Perks. He cites the province's energy plan as an example, calling it "one of the worst in the world," lacking in its commitment to meeting our energy needs through conservation, renewable resources (such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power) and co-Â*generation (turning wasted energy from industrial and commercial sites into usable power).
According to WWF Canada and the Pembina Institute, Ontario could cut greenhouse gases and reduce its dependence on coal sooner than expected by opting for such greener energy solutions, which would also make meeting Toronto's greenhouse gas reduction goals that much easier. Plans to increase our reliance on nuclear energy, however, have some people, including Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, worried about the effect it might have on our drinking water, especially if the Pickering power plant were to be expanded.
Knowing where candidates stand on the Greenbelt -- the 1.8 billion hectares of land that the province has protected from future development -- is also important. The environmentally sensitive land not only acts as the city's lungs, but is also our main source of locally grown food and home to the watersheds that ensure our drinking water supply. It may be protected, but that hasn't stopped some developers from fighting to build there. The Greater Golden Horseshoe, where the Greenbelt resides, is the fastest growing urban area in Canada and the third fastest in North America.
Toronto's trash-reduction goals would be a lot easier to meet with help from the province as well. With a new garbage-collection program that will see Torontonians pay according to the size of the garbage bin they take to the curb, the pressure is on residents to reduce, reuse and recycle to help the city meet its goal to divert 70 per cent of waste generated by households and small businesses. Only the province has the power to regulate those who produce the packaging we end up having to throw out in the first place. They also play a big role in how we dispose of our waste, as evidenced the government's recent decision to fast-track incineration pilot projects in Ontario.
3. A BETTER WAY
When TTC chair Adam Giambrone announced Transit City -- a 120 km streetcar network that would crisscross the city -- the big question was: how are we going to pay for it? Priced at $6.1 billion, the new LRT lines won't be possible without funding from both the province and the federal government. To everyone's surprise, in June, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty announced that Queen's Park would fund two thirds of the network as part of its MoveOntario 2020 plan, which contains other goodies, such as an extension of the Yonge Street subway to Highway 7 and expanding capacity on all GO lines. The election, however, means that whether or not the cash actually comes through may be up in the air.
The financial pressures that Toronto's transit system faces are well-known by those who use the system -- while downtowners complain of overcrowded streetcars that inch along at a snail's pace, inner suburbanites deal with infrequent service that's spread thin among the sprawling subdivisions and clusters of towers. Despite the TTC's less-than-ideal service, however, ridership is growing, which means costs are rising. Before the TTC was asked to consider cutbacks in the wake of Toronto's recently declared financial crisis, the goal was to find $640,000 to boost services to meet an unexpected growth in ridership, which is projected to reach 462 million in 2007.
Once upon a time (before 1997, to be exact), the provincial government paid for 50 per cent of the TTC's operating costs not covered by fares. With climate change, smog and road congestion, continuing to get people out of their cars and onto public transit is increasingly important, but the province will have to give us more help. "The fact is, in order for us to get back to a sustainable level, we have to get back to the 50-50 split in cost between the province and the city," says Giambrone. "That's really where we have to be."
4. EDUCATION
While investing in programs and opportunities for low-income youth remains a priority for Torontonians, the financial pressures that Toronto's schools face are eerily similar to those that plague our municipal government. With no choice but to balance their budgets each year, boards across the province have been forced to raid their reserves -- in total, 26 boards used more than $100,000 each from their reserve funds to balance their budgets for the 2007-08 year. This year, the Toronto District School Board alone has an estimated budget shortfall of around $25 million.
The city's growing population and diverse communities mean that Toronto schools face different pressures than elsewhere in the province. "People should ask candidates if they believe urban schools and non-urban schools have different needs and, if so, what their party is going to do about it," says Annie Kidder of People for Education. "
One issue that affects Greater Toronto Area (GTA) schools is English as a Second Language (ESL) training. While 90 per cent of schools in the GTA report having ESL students, only 54 per cent of those schools actually have ESL teachers to support them, and there's nothing in place to ensure that the funds allocated for ESL students actually get to ESL students. Severe shortfalls in other areas, such as building maintenance costs, have forced some schools to use cash set aside for ESL training to fix leaky roofs. Without adequate funds from the province, they've had little choice.
5. THE OMB
Of the top five provincial election issues affecting Toronto, abolishing the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) -- the much-hated, provincially appointed body that has the power to overturn planning decisions supported by both city council and neighbourhood residents -- will be the easiest for candidates to ignore. The effect it has on Toronto's ability to determine what our city will look like in the future, however, is significant. Developers, for example, know that if city council doesn't approve their projects -- be they high-rise condos, big-box stores or townhomes on land zoned for employment -- they can appeal to the OMB and get their high-priced lawyers to defend them at hearings. The city and neighbourhood associations, meanwhile, don't have nearly as much money to throw around.
Overall, the OMB helps make it more difficult for Toronto's understaffed planning department to engage in real, proactive planning (i.e., knowing what kind of development is best suited for a neighbourhood before development applications roll in). And, no matter how much Torontonians question the OMB's authority, the province, it seems, doesn't want to listen.
A recent surprise ruling by the Divisional Court regarding the OMB's decision on developments in the West Queen West neighbourhood, however, provided proof that the board doesn't always play by the rules. "The board's reasons are devoid of any discussion of the Planning Act, Provincial Policy Statements and the city's Official Plan as they apply to these lands," the ruling stated. "The board provides no rationale or analysis to support its conclusion that the projects were in the public interest."
A coalition of neighbourhood groups called People Planning Toronto (PPT) would like to see the OMB's planning authority over the City of Toronto abolished. Though other provinces have appeal systems, none have an appeal board with the same sweeping powers as the OMB. PPT's desire to scrap the provincially appointed board, which was created in 1897, is shared by many members of council. "[The OMB] is a Frankenstein monster that's out of control," Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said during February's council meeting. "It must be eliminated."
Check out EYE WEEKLY's 2007 provincial election mini-site for more coverage, including the riding-by-riding lowdown here.
